The photo above was taken from the Boylan Avenue bridge and ahead of the Raleigh skyline, you can see the construction site of the upcoming Raleigh Union Station. More than the building itself, work is/will be taking place for the parking lot, concourse, and new platforms at the tracks.

Does anyone know if the tunnel under the tracks, connecting West to, uh, Harrington, or vice versa…not sure…anyway, is that happening still? It seems like a lot of the under ground utility reconfiguring is part of that, but as of now, no obvious tunnel is being dug out. A second phase perhaps….?

Hey Mark No 2…fist, I want to apologize for you being relegated to no 2 status…most likely you were here long before me (RC that is). I’ll go ahead and, first, fess up to being 42 years old. Having said that, my 25-28 year range was spent mostly in the warehouse district, Glenwood South developed a few years later. Here is, from my aging memory, the places that dominated the Warehouse District in the mid 90’s. Jillians, The Warehouse, Wicked Smile, Vertigo, Kings (original location), West End, Legends, Humble Pie v.1, Fallout Shelter and Capital Corral (aka CC’s). Contemporary to this, Five Points was a major scene, as was the area around the Brewery (RIP) and Greenshields, Pourhouse and Black Cat were holding down City Market too. So, just wanted to lend some old guy perspective…Glenwood is very much, a secondary push into downtown. I do hope, though, that this warehouse district push is a lasting one.

The West Street connection is still planned but is not being built right now. Raleigh is asking for DOT participation in that one and there seems to be some disagreement over the cost estimates when it comes to budgeting. Raleigh holds it will be about $25 million and NCDOT estimates more like $70 million. There will however be two new bridges built as part of the station project where roads can pass under the tracks into the Union Station complex, but nothing passing all the way through to the south. Maybe that is the utility work that you are seeing.

The N&O is running a story about Exploris building a new campus downtown at Kidley St. This is the very location many had proposed as a great site for a sports stadium. Alas, this is not to be apparently.

The middle school on Hillsborough St. as well as the elementary school on New Bern Ave. near Swain will both be moving to the new location next year. As someone who lives to the east I’ve always had high hopes for how the large lot at New Bern/Swain might eventually be developed. We shall see …

Stew, that large lot is owned by Woodpile now. Since I believe Gordon Smith was involved with originally bringing Exploris Charter to the Exploris museum, I bet he has his hand in this move too (I may have some facts off here), possibly to develop that land. It is completely surrounded by new townhouse proposals so I could see this being the right time to do something fairly substantial for that spot…substantial in east side speak that is…no towers obviously.

@Mark – The lot in question (and adjacent areas) fall within a neighborhood conservation overlay district. There is an effort underway by developers to reduce lot frontage requirement on lots facing Edenton and/or New Bern to make townhouse development easier. The city is hosting meetings with the neighborhood to discuss.

I hope they do not keep that nasty hand painted childish sign on the station. We already will have a Dillon sign on the Kane project. Look to a modern lighted sign sign like at Union Station in Denver, add something Oak ish to represent the city as a whole. Maybe a multi purpose sign that can coordinate information and work with the conventions and Canes or something else not that boring thing.

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